decision to come live with the “soft” Frenchies for the next five years. A man accustomed to grouse, but all in all Rideau was happy with the Director’s decision to bring him on.
The Russian ambassador and liaison with the FSB (Federal Security Bureau) gave her a dry look embedded in a wry smile. “Let’s not talk of these things. What have you heard?”
Rideau smirked, and turned the computer around so that Metveyev could see Mitchell and Desh, and so they could see him. “We’re both here, boys. Go ahead and tell the ambassador what you told me.”
Mitchell spoke first, cleared his throat. “We came into some information, uh, some video footage we’d been sent by an anonymous source on the inside of the trade. The port authorities at Sadarghat Port weren’t even aware of the transaction happening. No one was supposed to be on those docks at that time of night.”
“You’re sure it was them?” asked Metveyev. Rideau watched him reach into his coat pocket, pull out a mint, unwrapped it and tossed it into his mouth. “We have to be sure this time, before we make fools out of ourselves again.”
“It’s them,” said Mitchell. “Facial-recognition software positively ID’d this man.” He held up a printout with a picture of a thick-faced man, with a square Russian jaw, icy-blue eyes, a hard stare, and perfectly manicured blonde hair.
“ Yuri Shcherbakov,” Rideau said. “I think you’re familiar with this man from the—”
“The Dutch revenge killings, da ,” he said flatly. “Russian Mafia. They call him the Grey Wolf.”
“That’s correct.” Rideau watched Metveyev for any sign of surprise. It was said it was difficult to get an emotional response out of a Russian, to get their eyes to widen or their eyebrows to rise, but even still, she’d figured mentioning Shcherbakov’s name would provoke more than a flat statement.
The Dutch revenge killings had been a dark time in FSB investigations. The Russian secret service agency had done all they could do to keep a media blackout concerning those gruesome crime scenes, and most of them had been spun to the press as nothing more than random acts of violence. But a popular journalist duo in Amsterdam had done a great deal of digging, and had done their jobs so well that they had uncovered a few ways that the notorious Dutch syndicates were getting women out of the ports at night, selling them to their allies in Russian circles.
The Russian Mafia, like so many other syndicates, did not like interference from outside sources. They had tried bribing the two journalists in Amsterdam, but it hadn’t worked. And the journalists only became more curious about the Dutch-Russian connection when they got wind of key witnesses against the human trafficking rings that began dying in grisly scenes, and they began to hear rumors of a man called the Grey Wolf.
The first to die was Jacobus van den Broek, a member of the Dut ch organized crime gang Skalla in Amsterdam. He was the first major arrest that Interpol helped to arrange with the Amsterdam Police Department. Two days before he was set to give testimony in court, van den Broek was found naked and bound on his living room floor, a fire poker that had been red-hot when it entered his anus was shoved completely inside, to its very handle. Autopsy and analysis of the crime scene indicated he was alive when this took place.
Then there was Aldo Daalder, owner of a modest wine company that was willing to testify that he and his family had been threatened unless they agreed to allow the Mafia use some of their shipping containers to move young girls back and forth between countries where the wine company did business. Daalder was left barely alive in a corner of his basement, tied to a chair by razor wire, where he’d nearly cut himself in half trying to reach his two daughters, four and six, who had been seated at a table across from one another and
The Russian ambassador and liaison with the FSB (Federal Security Bureau) gave her a dry look embedded in a wry smile. “Let’s not talk of these things. What have you heard?”
Rideau smirked, and turned the computer around so that Metveyev could see Mitchell and Desh, and so they could see him. “We’re both here, boys. Go ahead and tell the ambassador what you told me.”
Mitchell spoke first, cleared his throat. “We came into some information, uh, some video footage we’d been sent by an anonymous source on the inside of the trade. The port authorities at Sadarghat Port weren’t even aware of the transaction happening. No one was supposed to be on those docks at that time of night.”
“You’re sure it was them?” asked Metveyev. Rideau watched him reach into his coat pocket, pull out a mint, unwrapped it and tossed it into his mouth. “We have to be sure this time, before we make fools out of ourselves again.”
“It’s them,” said Mitchell. “Facial-recognition software positively ID’d this man.” He held up a printout with a picture of a thick-faced man, with a square Russian jaw, icy-blue eyes, a hard stare, and perfectly manicured blonde hair.
“ Yuri Shcherbakov,” Rideau said. “I think you’re familiar with this man from the—”
“The Dutch revenge killings, da ,” he said flatly. “Russian Mafia. They call him the Grey Wolf.”
“That’s correct.” Rideau watched Metveyev for any sign of surprise. It was said it was difficult to get an emotional response out of a Russian, to get their eyes to widen or their eyebrows to rise, but even still, she’d figured mentioning Shcherbakov’s name would provoke more than a flat statement.
The Dutch revenge killings had been a dark time in FSB investigations. The Russian secret service agency had done all they could do to keep a media blackout concerning those gruesome crime scenes, and most of them had been spun to the press as nothing more than random acts of violence. But a popular journalist duo in Amsterdam had done a great deal of digging, and had done their jobs so well that they had uncovered a few ways that the notorious Dutch syndicates were getting women out of the ports at night, selling them to their allies in Russian circles.
The Russian Mafia, like so many other syndicates, did not like interference from outside sources. They had tried bribing the two journalists in Amsterdam, but it hadn’t worked. And the journalists only became more curious about the Dutch-Russian connection when they got wind of key witnesses against the human trafficking rings that began dying in grisly scenes, and they began to hear rumors of a man called the Grey Wolf.
The first to die was Jacobus van den Broek, a member of the Dut ch organized crime gang Skalla in Amsterdam. He was the first major arrest that Interpol helped to arrange with the Amsterdam Police Department. Two days before he was set to give testimony in court, van den Broek was found naked and bound on his living room floor, a fire poker that had been red-hot when it entered his anus was shoved completely inside, to its very handle. Autopsy and analysis of the crime scene indicated he was alive when this took place.
Then there was Aldo Daalder, owner of a modest wine company that was willing to testify that he and his family had been threatened unless they agreed to allow the Mafia use some of their shipping containers to move young girls back and forth between countries where the wine company did business. Daalder was left barely alive in a corner of his basement, tied to a chair by razor wire, where he’d nearly cut himself in half trying to reach his two daughters, four and six, who had been seated at a table across from one another and
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